Career and Technology Education

A few days ago, I attended a Career and Technical Education (CTE) committee meeting at our town’s high school. This committee used to be called “School-to-Career” and at first, the change to CTE sounded to me like we added a degree of separation between us and the students. School-to-Career was a mandate; “CTE” sounds like a committee, sigh… But, the new name is a good move for this committee - let’s face it; students aren’t likely to move from high school to a career.

The committee mostly focuses on students who aren’t planning to attend a 4-yr college program. College may not be the plan, but training certainly looms in their future. Students looking for good jobs that don’t require a college diploma are still looking at some serious education either through a technical training school, community college, industry (or trade union) organized training or the military. Diplomas, certificates and designations are also in their near future.

The goal of this committee and the working arm it’s attached to, the Guidance Department is to educate students as to what their career options are and to help them prepare now to meet the demands of their future employers. When I began serving on this committee (during the last century) we were scrambling to focus on those 12th graders without a clear plan. Today, again mainly due to the effort of the folks in Guidance, some of the programs are reaching out to students as early as 9th grade and the really valuable stuff is being provided to every student. This is more than a good thing, it’s a necessary thing!

As hard as it is to think about “career choices” when your 14, it must be equally frustrating to the Guidance staff to know that bad choices made between 9th and 12th grade will haunt these kids for a long time. What are they doing to help? Well, they’re doing a lot of things but here’s a few that impressed me:

• They are making every senior fill out a college application. They don’t have to apply, but they have to go through the process up to the point where they could apply. By doing this, the students become aware of the process and the requirements in an environment where personal help is available (see last week’s post).
  
• They are subsidizing the PSATs for all sophomores and juniors and they are urging all students to take the SATs even if they don’t have immediate plans to attend college. Plans change and taking the SATs after graduation can be difficult to arrange and you’ve already begun forgetting some of what you learned.
  
• They held a recognition breakfast for all students performing at or above the goal on one set of standardized tests, and they let them bring their family.

In addition, they organize programs and events, from Alumni Day to Career Fairs to Mentoring programs to put students in touch with people who are working in those coveted careers. Guidance staff members are probably only one step above parents in terms of how students value their advice so these programs put students in touch with more credible sources. This is the opportunity for someone with experience to tell a future nurse that he/she needs to know math or to tell a future programmer that he/she will still need to write well and be able to speak in front of an audience of non-geeks. Programs like this make a difference - I urge you to contact your local high school’s Guidance Department and ask about opportunities for you to share your experience.

Speaking of 'speaking in front of an audience', next week, we’re going to begin a short series on training in public speaking. During the course of this series, we will introduce our first guest bloggers.